The celebrity blockout has already burned out

A social justice movement has devolved into chaos.

Embedded is your essential guide to what’s good on the internet, written by Kate Lindsay and edited by Nick Catucci.

On the flip side, here’s a good TikTok social justice movement to follow! —Kate

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On Monday, celebrities gathered at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to wear couture, get photographed, and raise around $26 million for the museum’s Costume Institute. That night in Rafah, 100,000 people were in the process of evacuating ahead of continued Israeli airstrikes. The juxtaposition of these two events seemed to newly invigorate people who have spent months watching helplessly as the situation in Gaza continues to devolve. A TikTok user, @blockout2024, responded with a call to action: block all celebrities on social media.

“Celebrities can’t earn ad revenue when we block them,” he said. Our online attention is a resource that indirectly funds events like the Met Gala, and by withholding this attention, we can—in theory—force coverage away from celebrities and onto the issues we care about. Blockout2024’s proposal, a noble one, quickly spread. But like many social media movements, the trend’s lack of unified goals and coherent leadership means it’s already losing the plot.